


Pacified

by skyenapped



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Grief, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Oral Fixation, Psychological Regression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 13:48:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1901340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyenapped/pseuds/skyenapped
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike can't sleep without a pacifier. Problem is, Harvey's dragging him to Boston and he forgets to pack it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pacified

**Author's Note:**

> Mike endured a lot of trauma losing his parents, and canonically he already has a oral fixation, so it made sense that he might use a pacifier as a coping mechanism. Here's an explanation of [psychological regression.](http://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/coping/regression.htm) (This is not infantilism.)
> 
> I'm sorta fascinated by the whole concept, so I might continue this one day.

*

 

“What’s this?”

There was a curious glint in Harvey’s eye when he spotted the pacifier where it was lying on the couch. He glanced up at Mike, a smirk playing at the corner of his lips.

“It’s, uh…” Mike was still standing at the door. He hurried over, snatched the pacifier and shoved it in his pocket. “It’s nothing.”

Harvey’s mocking grin grew wider and Mike felt his whole face go hot. He’d survived so many of Harvey’s unannounced visits without embarrassing himself, but it seemed his luck had finally run out.

“Hm. Nothing, huh?” Harvey looked around the small apartment. “You babysitting?”

Mike frowned, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “What? No.” His tone soured. “Harvey, it’s Saturday morning, what do you want?”

Normally, he appreciated Harvey’s company – minus the whole barging-in-without-asking part – but right now he felt exposed and humiliated. He thumbed the pacifier in his pocket and felt his heart beating hard under Harvey’s hard stare. He presumed it was a judgmental one. After all, this wasn’t something he expected anyone to understand, especially not Harvey of all people.

“We’re going to Boston,” Harvey announced, traces of amusement still on his face. “Pack a bag, we gotta meet a client tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Yeah, tonight. Now come on, Ray’s waiting.”

“Harvey—”

“Mike.” Harvey raised an eyebrow. “Do what you’re told.”

Mike sighed. “Can I take a shower?”

“No time. Take one at the hotel.”

“Can I at least get dressed?”

“I suppose.”

“You’re a true giver.” Mike grumbled for a few minutes as he grabbed some clothes and then disappeared into the bathroom.

Twelve minutes later, with a duffel bag stuffed with clothes and a suit Harvey had insisted Mike take the time to actually fold, they were in the back of Ray’s town car and pulling away from the curb.

“How far is it?” Mike asked after a few minutes.

Harvey was sipping a coffee that Ray had passed into the backseat, and seemed preoccupied with the newspaper he had in his lap. “You live in New York and you don’t know how far away Boston is?” He rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me you have to pee already.”

“No…” Mike shifted and shrugged. “Just wondering.”

They felt quiet after that, Harvey eventually deciding to tell him “about three hours, rookie,” before going back to reading his paper while Mike stared out the window.

About an hour into the drive, the silence was killing Mike. He was bored as shit. Finally, Harvey indulged him in conversation about the client that was so important they demanded this impromptu trip north.

“Wait, so we only have to meet with them tonight?”

Harvey nodded. “That’s what I said, pup.”

“But we’re staying all weekend.”

“Uh-huh. You wanted a roadtrip, right? Merry Christmas.”

“Sweet! Is there a pool?”

“Yeah, kid.” Harvey laughed. “There’s a pool.”

Now wide awake, and giddy with excitement, Mike grinned and tapped his fingers on his knee. He was alert now, excited, and present, and that was exactly when Harvey took the opportunity to pounce.

“So. Did I wake you?”

“Huh?” Mike turned to face him, looking distracted by thoughts of Boston and a change of scenery. And, if he was being honest, hanging out with Harvey outside of the office sounded pretty good too, though he kept that to himself.

“When I showed up this morning. You looked tired.”

“Uh, yeah, Harvey it was like nine a.m.”

Harvey continued to stare at the paper, but the smirk was back in place. All he said was, “Hm.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Mike had a feeling he knew what Harvey was getting at, and he hoped if he didn’t push, Harvey would drop the subject. He didn’t. In fact, after a passing moment of silence, his approach was rather blunt.

“You sleep with a pacifier, Mike?” There was less ridicule in his voice now – Mike was grateful for that – but his tone was still heavy with curious amusement.

 _“No,”_ Mike lied. Except when it came to Harvey’s impervious stare, Mike’s poker face was insufficient. He squirmed under brown eyes and finally admitted, in a soft, slightly-ashamed voice, “I can’t sleep without it.” He turned quickly and looked out the window again.

When Harvey didn’t say anything else, Mike felt a sudden need to defend himself. Tears already prickled his eyes, and in the backseat, he was as good as trapped. Even without Harvey asking anymore questions, he still felt interrogated.

“After my parents were killed, I…” he winced, still refusing to turn back to Harvey. He kept his vision trained on passing buildings. “I never could fall asleep, or…or I’d just have nightmares if I did. It was…it was the only thing that helped. I just—”

“Mike. You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

“Yeah, but you think it’s stupid.”

“I don’t think it’s stupid,” Harvey told him. “And why do you care what I think?”

That got Mike to lift his forehead from where it was pressed against the window. He turned to face Harvey, eyes wet and a little shiny. “I always care what you think,” he said.

For the rest of the trip, they both kept their eyes elsewhere.

 

*

By the time they’d wined and dined their client, got the appropriate papers and checks signed, Mike had almost forgotten about his embarrassing debacle at the apartment or the awkward car conversation. He was too busy staring in awe at the towering five-star suite Harvey had booked them, and the massive indoor heated pool.

His excitement was contagious, and Harvey couldn’t hide a smile just watching Mike peering excitedly out at the beautiful view of downtown Boston.

“So cool,” Mike muttered, more to himself than Harvey, as if he thought he should reign in his enthusiasm. He still couldn’t resist flopping down spread-eagle on the bed, wondering how a mattress like this even existed while he was doomed to sleep on metal springs back home.

“You like it?” Harvey asked, and Mike nodded wildly. “You get outta that suit, we can check out the pool you’ve been rambling on about nonstop.”

Mike jolted upright. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

Grinning wide, Mike grabbed his duffel bag off the floor, tossed it onto the bed and began to dig through it. He hadn’t thought to pack a swimsuit, but apparently in his haste to leave he’d managed to throw in a pair of shorts. Good enough, he decided, and when Harvey vanished into the bathroom, Mike escaped the confines of his stifling suit in favor of khakis and a t-shirt.

Harvey, of course, emerged from the bathroom in perfectly tailored swim trunks that Mike figured he hadn’t even packed himself. And he was shirtless, which didn’t surprise Mike at all but did strange things to his mouth like make it go completely dry at the sight.

“Ready, rookie?” Harvey’s voice snapped him out of his trance, but apparently not before it’d already become painfully obvious. “Or did you want to stare a little longer?”

Mike tore his eyes from where Harvey was running two fingers over the faint outlines of his six-pack in a way Mike was certain was a little bit intentional. “Yeah. What? No, I mean, I—”

Harvey smirked, hurled a towel at him and headed to the door. “Let’s go, pup.”

 

*

By the time they got to the pool, Mike’s minor self-esteem crisis over looking like an underfed college student compared to Harvey’s abs and even tan had mostly resolved itself. He was so excited, he didn’t waste any more time critiquing his own body. Instead he yanked off his shirt and hopped into the shallow end.

Toward deep side, Harvey sat on the edge with only his legs submerged.

Mike soared to the surface, gasped for air and laughed. “Come _on,”_ he called.

“It’s freezing,” Harvey replied, his voice bounding off the walls. It was only nine-thirty, but no one else in the hotel was around.

Mike scoffed, “It is not. It’s _heated.”_

“Sixty-five degrees isn’t heated.”

“Oh my god, Harvey, this water’s like seventy-five degrees. Will you just get in? You’re so old.”

“I’m what now?”

“Nothing,” Mike said, and quickly ducked under water again.

When he came up for air, Harvey had finally slinked into the water. He looked cold, but otherwise content, treading water and splashing it on his face. “Why are you over there, rookie? In the kiddie pool?”

Mike didn’t answer, just stared at his feet through the crystal clear water.

“Why don’t you come over where you can actually, I don’t know, swim?”

“I’m good here,” Mike replied nervously.

“Mike.”

Mike looked up and across the pool at Harvey, feeling embarrassed for the second time that day, except now for an entirely new reason. “I can’t.”

“You can’t swim?”

Unable to tell if Harvey was just surprised, or masking a laugh, Mike shook his head. “No one ever taught me, okay?” He felt defensiveness flare inside again. Harvey was always impressing him, doing things that made Mike look up to him, respect him, stand in awe, and yet Mike felt like he was systematically letting Harvey down with a series of personal failures. Beginning, of course, with being a fraud and apparently ending somewhere between sleeping with a pacifier and not knowing how to swim.

He didn’t expect Harvey to make fun of him. He knew Harvey wouldn’t tease him about something so clearly unfunny – _my parents were too dead to take me to the shore –_ but that wasn’t the point. The point was he didn’t want Harvey to think any less of him, to pity him; to think he was even more helpless than he already was.

“You’ve been going nonstop about this pool all day, and you can’t swim?”

“I just like the water,” Mike replied, looking away. “I didn’t realize there was some level of aquatic expertise I had to meet, so…”

“I’ll show you, then,” wasn’t the kind of reaction Mike had anticipated, but Harvey said it nonetheless. He paddled slowly in Mike’s direction.

“You…what?”

“I’ll show you,” Harvey repeated, gliding up to him. “How to swim. Just a crash course, but enough so you won’t drown in twelve feet of water. Alright?”

Mike stared blankly, surprised and a little nervous. _“You’re_ gonna teach me how to swim?”

“What?” Harvey pretended to look hurt. “You saying I’m not a good teacher?”

“Uh, yeah, of the law. But this is water. I can _die_ in water.”

“First of all, rookie, you’re standing in about four feet of it right now, so I’d say you’re safe. Secondly, I find you useful on some occasions, therefore, I promise not to let you die.” He extended his hand. “But you have trust me. Deal?”

Tentatively, with anxiety clawing him under his skin, Mike took Harvey’s hand and allowed himself to be led into deeper water. When he felt the smooth floor under his feet begin to slope, slipping away from him, he instinctively tightened his grip on Harvey.

“I got you,” Harvey told him, sliding a strong arm around Mike’s chest. “We’re just treading water for now. You know how to do that, right?”

Mike rolled his eyes and began to move his legs. “Yes.”

“Alright. Good.”

“I’m sinking, Harvey.”

Harvey laughed softly. “I’m holding you up, kid, you’re not going anywhere. Don’t kick your feet so fast. Pretend you’re pedaling on that bike you like so much.” When Mike’s movements became less panicked, Harvey nodded. “Just like that. See?’

“Okay, but…” Mike didn’t like the feeling of having nothing solid under his feet. “What happens when I get tired?”

“You use your arms. Like this—”

“Wait, Harvey, don’t—”

“I’m not going far, relax.” Harvey slid his arm away from Mike and began to demonstrate a slow, basic freestyle stroke through the water. “Just watch me.”

He swam in a circle and ended up back where he started, floating a few feet from his associate. “Try it.”

Mike took a deep breath and, with the pattern memorized, began to mimic the way Harvey had moved so effortlessly through the water. Admittedly, his version was half as graceful and took twice as long, but when he was finished he was relieved to realize that not only had he not inhaled massive amounts of chlorinated water – but that Harvey wasn’t laughing at him, either. In fact, he was staring back and he looked _proud._ Of course, Mike wasn’t entirely sure if Harvey was proud of him or just of himself.

“Not too hard, was it?”

Mike shook his head. “No.”

“Come on.” Harvey nodded toward the other side of the pool. “Try to make it back to that end with me.”

It was a daunting distance, even though the pool wasn’t especially big, but Mike gave it a valiant effort, moving his arms and legs the way Harvey had showed him. Eventually he could feel his toes skimming the smooth concrete. With a sigh of relief, he stood up in waist-deep water. 

“Thanks,” he mumbled, after a couple of minutes.

Harvey had taken a seat a few yards away on the steps and was nodding back. “Sure thing, rookie.”

Mike wondered if he would ever retire that nickname, but signs seemed to point toward no. And honestly, Mike didn’t really mind. Watching Harvey wiping excess water off his face, running a large hand through water-darkened blonde hair, he felt an overwhelming surge of affection for the man. It was like all of the occasions where he’d ever looked up to him, wondered what it’d be like to be closer to him, to have more one-on-one time that didn’t revolve around work – were all colliding right there in the pool. Combined with being completely out of his comfort zone, plus Harvey’s recent benevolence, and Mike was helpless to resist the sudden impulse rushing through his blood, telling him to thank Harvey a different way; a way that better made his point.

Without thinking it through, he waded briskly through the water toward the stairs, pausing only to cradle Harvey’s jaws in his hands and whisper, _“You’re fucking perfect,”_ before pressing his lips against his mouth in a gentle but purposeful kiss.

Of course, when Mike felt Harvey tense under the touch, reality jolted him backwards. For a second, he froze completely, one hand on the railing next to Harvey, the other touching his own lips where they still tingled from the contact.

“Oh…” a wave of panic hit him and shook his head wildly, backing up and looking down at the water. “Sorry, sorry, I’m so—shit, Harvey, I didn’t—oh, god, please don’t—am I fired? Please don’t fire me. I was just—”

“Mike.” Harvey’s voice was certain and his expression hard, but both were completely unreadable. This both surprised and terrified Mike, since he normally had no trouble deciphering Harvey’s reactions.

“Harvey, I—”

Harvey stood up, exiting the pool and grabbing his towel from a nearby chair. “We should go, they’re closing the pool in fifteen minutes.”

Mike hesitated, and out of a loss as to what else to do, he grabbed his own towel, shirt, and quickly followed, trying to dry himself off to some degree before the door to the hotel closed in his face.

It was cold inside now that he was wet, and he pulled his shirt back on over his head looking for warmth.

The elevator ride was tense and Mike didn’t know if it was just him or if things had really descended from _perfectly fine_ to _awkward as hell_ in the span of one brief kiss. Either way, he lingered in the corner opposite his boss and wondered if it was possible to dissolve from sheer embarrassment.

When the doors opened, he trailed after Harvey, this time a bit more slowly, studying the man’s actions and trying to figure out what it meant. Was he angry? Annoyed? Indifferent? Mike couldn’t tell for sure, but he figured it was one of the three. Uncertain which hurt more, he approached with caution when Harvey began rifling through his suitcase.

“Harvey,” he began. “I, uh…I know…that wasn’t, like, professional and, um, I just wanted to…I’m sorry. If you want to just…uh…you know, forget about it…”

Harvey whirled around, jeans in one hand, wet hair sticking up in all directions. “Forget about what, Mike?” he asked harshly.

That sounded like an answer, so Mike battled past the lump in his throat and nodded. He made his way toward his bed, which was the one beside the window, and began to slowly dig out a pair of sweatpants and a long sleeved shirt. If Harvey could hardly even look at him, Mike would just go to bed.

Except he was missing something. Something he’d forgotten to take out of pocket after he’d changed at his apartment, when Harvey had been impatiently rushing him out the door.

Mike checked the bottom of his bag, the side pockets, some extra zipper compartment, the pockets of everything – just in case – but came up empty.

_“Shit.”_

His search was apparently so frantic that Harvey – already dressed again, hair nearly dry – was staring at him in mild alarm from the bathroom doorway.

“You forget something?” he asked.

“No,” Mike lied. He tossed his bag onto the floor and tried not to think about it; tried to pretend it didn’t matter, that more anxiety wasn't threading itself around his every cell.

Harvey looked at him a little longer and then eventually shrugged. “I’m going to the drug store on the corner,” he announced. “We have a coffee machine but no coffee.”

“Doesn’t the hotel give us coffee?”

“Not the kind I like,” Harvey replied.

Mike decided to leave it at that. Though he had a feeling it wasn’t coffee that Harvey couldn’t survive the morning without, but his precious scotch that Mike would bet was sold at the liquor store he’d seen right beside the drug store.

Once Harvey left the room, Mike sighed, changed into his sleeping clothes fell into bed.

 

 

Sleep didn’t come, though. He tossed and turned and felt a wave of painful memories rising to the surface until he sat up and, in a fit of frustration, threw his legs over the side of the bed and burst into tears.

It wasn’t an emotion he could pinpoint, but rather a cluster of them all colliding. He missed his parents. Still, after all this time, and strongly, _painfully._ Bringing them up earlier had ripped another layer off a wound that had never really healed in the first place. And beyond that, he’d opened up to Harvey, and now he regretted it. He felt exposed and silly and his reckless kiss had only seemed to repulse Harvey, which, Mike decided, was worse than never having kissed him at all.

Thinking of Harvey, Mike tried to compose himself before the door opened again, but it was just his luck that Harvey walked in when he was right in the middle of a devastating sob. There wasn’t any hiding it. All he could do was cover his face with his hands and hope Harvey had the tact – or lack of – to ignore the fact that he was crying.

Of course, Harvey had a proclivity for paying attention to Mike the most when Mike preferred he didn’t, and ignoring him on the occasions he could use a little support. It figured.

He heard Harvey set a bag down on the counter in the kitchenette – something that made a soft thack and something heavier than sounded like a bottle and distinctly _not_ like coffee – before padding across the room.

Mike felt the mattress dip as Harvey sat beside him.

“What’s going on? Hm?”

“Nothing.” Mike sniffled at the miserable lie. “I just…can’t sleep.”

“Well, it’s early,” Harvey reasoned, shrugging. He paused and then added, “But that isn’t all, is it?”

Mike shook his head, though he didn’t offer any more information, and several seconds of silence transcended into a lull of time in which neither of them said anything. It should’ve been awkward, given the recent pool incident, and, really, the entire day, but it wasn’t, not quite.

Eventually, Harvey’s hand found the back of Mike’s neck, giving it a gentle squeeze. It was like a transfer of courage through skin.

“I miss them,” Mike whimpered, trying to muffle his confession with one hand. He’d relaxed under Harvey’s touch – it was strong and warm and reassuring and no one had touched him like that in a long time – but he was still too embarrassed about his earlier faux pas to look anywhere except down at the floor.

“Your parents?”

“Yeah. All the…” he gasped between words. “All the _time.”_

There was an ache in Harvey’s chest spurred by seeing Mike in pain, and it unsettled him in a brand new way, a way that made him question if Mike had been suffering right in front of him all this time and he’d just never picked up on how bad it was.

With his hand still resting on Mike’s neck , he sighed. Imparting wisdom wasn’t his strongest skill, but this was one occasion he found worthy of the effort. “Listen, Mike, life’s tough, alright? I know you know that. And you got dealt a worse hand than most people. But you’ve made it this far, right?”

Mike nodded.

“I miss them too, you know,” Harvey continued. “My parents. That feeling, it doesn’t go away, but…it gets easier.”

“When?”

“Gradually, over time, it just hurts a little less. And then you wake up one day and you don’t feel like it’s crushing you anymore. You don’t feel as alone anymore because you’re _not._ I promise you that.” He let his hand fall slowly from Mike’s neck. “Okay?”

Again, Mike nodded, using the back of his hand to wipe away the leftover tears. “Yeah,” he whispered. And then, “I, uh…I’m sorry about earlier. It just sort of…happened, I guess. I don’t know.”

Harvey stood up. “I didn’t not like it, Mike,” he admitted, looking down. “You just caught me off-guard. You know, not many people are capable of doing that.”

Mike felt a wave of relief coast over him, and he exhaled. “Oh. So…”

“So, why don’t we give Boston hell for another day and then talk about it when we go home?”

“Okay.”

“Good.” Harvey rounded the bed and crossed the room. “I got you something,” he announced, returning to the bags he’d left in the kitchenette.

Frowning, Mike turned to watch him rifle through one of them. Sure enough, a bottle of scotch sat next to it, and feeling a little nervous, Mike deflected. “I don’t think I can drink that, it looks too expensive.”

Harvey saw through him and smirked, tossing a plastic-covered object through the air. Reflexively, Mike caught it before it could land in his lap. He glanced down and then went very still.

“Harvey—”

“It’s the only kind they had,” Harvey interrupted casually, like purchasing pacifiers at eleven o’clock in Boston was something he did on a regular basis. “I hope it’s okay.”

“Yeah, I just…” Mike tentatively began to open the packaging. He couldn’t even remember what brand his was; he’d had it probably much longer than was sanitary, though he did keep it clean. This one was decidedly unbroken in and smelled like plastic, but it still made the difference between falling into a peaceful sleep, or lying in lurch, staring at the ceiling while a dozen bad memories flooded his brain. “You’re not gonna, like, tell anyone?”

Harvey turned from where he was meticulously pouring a glass of scotch. “Why would I do that?”

Mike couldn’t actually think of a reason, so he just shrugged. And while Harvey busied himself with checking his email, Mike crawled under the covers, pacifier tightly in hand. With the lights still on, however, and Harvey only several yards away, he stalled at putting it in his mouth, reaching for the remote instead and turning on the TV.

Everything about the hotel was excessively indulgent, including the suspended high-definition television, and Mike felt like he could lie there forever, nestled on what felt like a cloud, channel surfing. But his eyelids were heavy. The car ride, the client, and his slight attempt at swimming had all collectively drained him.

After a few more minutes, he yawned heavily, clicked off the TV first, and then the light next to the bed. The bathroom door was shut and the sound of the faucet running told him Harvey was probably brushing his teeth, so Mike took that instant to slip the pacifier between his teeth, tug the blanket up to his shoulder, and close his eyes.

This time, he fell asleep in ten minutes.

 

*

They got back to New York on Monday night. Mike dropped his bag onto the couch, and grabbed a beer from the fridge.

He found his old pacifier in the pair of sweats he’d left on the floor of the bathroom, and set it on the coffee table. Then, unzipping the duffel bag nearby, he searched for the one Harvey had bought him.

Sure enough, it was tucked in between a few shirts, right where he’d packed it. What he hadn’t saved was the cardboard part of the packaging it had come in, yet there it was on top of a pair of carelessly balled up jeans. There was a pamphlet taped to the back of it, and Mike unfurled it slowly, revealing the logo of some elite fitness center he’d never heard of, probably because it was so far out of his budget it might as well have been located on the sun.

A picture of a pool was circled, with familiar handwriting under it in fine point permanent marker that read, _If you want to learn to swim. Or catch me off guard again._

Mike didn’t mean to laugh out loud, but he couldn’t help it. Peeling the pamphlet off, he noticed another note beneath it, in the same penmanship he'd recognize anywhere:

_Sometimes it doesn’t matter how you get by, rookie. It just matters that you do._

He stared at it for a while, letting the words sink in. Then he walked over to the fridge, pinning the note to the door with a magnet. Harvey might see it someday, whenever he decided to waltz in again, but that was alright.  

Mike grabbed the new pacifier on his way to bed. He tossed the old one in the trash.  

 

*


End file.
